Severus's Deepest Secrets
by CoyGeek38
Summary: During a detention, Ginny gets a glimpse into her professor's past that alters entirely her perspective on his actions. No Romance. Strictly preBook6.


**_Severus's Deepest Secrets_**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Snape or Ginny. JK created them and the world in which they live, including pieces of some scenes in this fic which are taken from the fifth book. Expansions of these scenes and others are mine.**

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It was on the desk when Ginny arrived in the dungeon office at seven o'clock that evening for detention. The shallow basin, unmarked and unpolished, stood alone before Professor Snape. The airy liquid in the Pensieve shimmered silver and gold in the torchlight. Ginny shivered. The cold eyes of Severus Snape looked up at her from the basin's swirling contents. "Miss Weasley." The name dripped off his tongue like something vile and revolting. Ginny stepped into the office and stood before Snape, the desk between them.

"You know why you are here?" Condescending, rhetorical.

She knew why she had detention. Insubordination, that's why. Potions was easily one of her best subjects, though far from her favorite. Spotting a flaw in Snape's instruction, Ginny had pointed it out for him, and for the class. Snape had been horrified, thrown from his high pillar of perfection. And he hated her for it. And the simplicity of the blunder, her sheer audacity in informing the room. Snape had been struck dumb at first. Then it had come crashing down on him, humiliating him in front of the group of sixteen-year-old Gryffindors and Ravenclaws. Twenty points had been taken from Gryffindor and Ginny had been warned publicly not to doubt his capabilities as Potions Master. The look of icy fury in his eyes would have been enough to prevent Ginny's ever speaking out in class again, but it had not been enough for Snape. He had stewed menacingly in his chair for the next ninety minutes, mulling things over, and called for Ginny when the bell rang for break. In the privacy of the quickly emptied classroom, Snape had assigned her a detention. To her it seemed only punishment to satisfy a personal vendetta.

Snape had always hated her, just as he hated her brothers, Harry, Hermione. They were a threat to him. They forced him to struggle to keep a handle on his faculties. They defied his order, his rules, his comfortable control. Insubordination. That's what it would is always come down to. It would be the same reason if she talked too much to Maisy Dickinson during lecture or threw spit wads at the ceiling. Insubordination. Any Slytherin would just be high-spirited. She was an insubordinate troublemaker.

Ginny stared blankly into Snape's sallow face, examining the deep-set eyes, angular jaw line, greasy roots of limp hair, lips pursed in twisted thought. Every bit of Severus Snape was disgusting. A wave of loathing welled up and washed over her.

"Yes, Professor," she knew damn well.

"Very well." He rose from his chair, one hand on either side of the Pensieve on his otherwise bare desk. "Then you know I will not stand for your lack of respect for rank in this school. As your superior, you will pay due what is due me while you are in my class and without. Is that perfectly clear?"

"Crystal, sir."

"Now, behind you," he waved a skeletal hand, "there are a number of specimen jars that now stand void of their late inhabitants." Ginny half turned to see nearly and entire shelf, floor to ceiling, of various colored jars sitting empty. "They will need cleaned before I can replace the specimens. You can go when they are sufficiently clean." Ginny groaned audibly and quickly regretted the utterance. "And no magic, Miss Weasley. You can leave your wand with me."

Snape held out a waiting hand, and reluctantly Ginny surrendered her wand. He quickly tucked it away in a drawer and pulled out his own. Fear gripped her for a moment as he raised his weapon. What was this sick bastard going to do to her now she was alone and unarmed, far from friendly ears? A sigh of relief came when he had conjured a bucket of hot wash water and a scouring pad from nowhere. Snape returned to his chair and the shiny surface of the basin.

Ginny faced the job that awaited her, resigned to an evening of such enjoyment she could hardly conceal her glee. "What are you waiting for? Those jars won't wash themselves." But under his breath she heard, "If they did, there's be not reason for you to grace my office with your presence," his voice dripping with sarcasm. She winced at his words, but how could she expect any more from Snape?

Ginny grabbed an armful of grimy, slimy, algae-slicked jars and settled herself on the cold stone floor of Snape's office beside the bucket of soapy water. Sleeves rolled up, she prepared herself for a barrel of fun.

Loathing flowed freely through Ginny as she worked her way over dozens of jars of various shapes and sizes. Now and then she would send a fleeting look of disgust toward her professor. She had not intended to be cheeky or undermine his authority in class. She had been looking out for the welfare of her classmates' marks for the day. Snape was not likely to admit he had made a mistake and grade their draughts according to the faulty instructions he had given. Everyone would be graded based on how the potion should have been rather than how they had been told to make it. Did she deserve this detention? Hell, no! And the twenty points? They should be back in the bottom of the Gryffindor hourglass in the entrance hall.

A loud crack broke through Ginny's thoughts. The jar she had been washing had broken under the vise-like grip she had subconsciously held on it. Her hands were shaking now with anger. Snape's eyes shot up at the sound. "Miss Weasley! Be careful! I had hoped this would be a constructive lesson. Do try not to destroy my things." From his place at the desk, he fired a simple repairing spell, returning the glass shards to their original state. Ginny sat a moment, just staring at Snape. "Now get back to work."

Snape bowed his head once more over the basin, but Ginny could not tear her eyes from Snape and the Pensieve. After a moment, he touched the tip of his ebony wand to his temple. Pulling it slowly away, a silver thread was drawn out, thin and gossamer. Ginny watched in silent curiosity as Snape deposited the thread in the basin, swilling it around with the rest of the seemingly moonlit contents. Snape's face contorted as he watched the surface of the Pensieve, not pleased with what he saw. He bit his lower lip, and his brow furrowed deeply. What thoughts could he possibly be studying within the basin? Surely it was something important to fill him with consternation as it appeared. Ginny longed to know what thoughts he had deposited within the Pensieve and why he had done so.

Both Snape and Ginny's attention was moved elsewhere when the empty grate burst into flame. Dumbledore's head floated in the fire, a light smile on his face. "Severus—Ah, Miss Weasley," the Headmaster interrupted himself upon seeing Ginny. "Excuse my barging in, but I need to speak with Professor Snape." Ginny nodded and rose, ready to leave.

"Ridiculous, Miss Weasley. Return to your work, and I shall attend to Professor Dumbledore." Dumbledore's smile broadened, and his head disappeared, extinguishing the fire. Snape stood and moved fluidly through the door, his black robes billowing behind him.

Ginny wasted no time in making sure Snape was gone, but went immediately to the other side of the professor's desk and looked down into the Pensieve. The high round window opened to a scene on the Hogwarts grounds. A group of students was gathered, but around what Ginny couldn't tell. She leaned in closer, paying no heed to the fact that Professor Snape might return quickly from Dumbledore's office. As her nose came dangerously close to the glassy almost-liquid, the ground lurched and Ginny was pitched headforemost into the crowd.

She pushed her way through the students to the center of the laughing mob. Ginny nearly laughed herself at the sight, for in front of her, hung upside down in midair, was teenage Snape, struggling to keep his robes covering his scrawny legs.

"Who wants to see me take off Snivelly's pants?" came an oddly familiar voice from inside the tightly packed circle of students. Several others cheered at the idea. As Ginny watched unblinkingly, the legs of Snape's pants began to inch upward. The greasy, pale boy frantically tried to hold them on, meanwhile shouting a string of obscenities at the jeering and cheering people below.

"What's going on here?" a new voice sounded over the din. It too was eerily familiar. And then through the wall of people on the other side of the clearing broke a stunningly pretty girl with dark hair, wand in hand. Ginny cringed at the sight of her, recognizing her at once and surging with hate.

"Bella, get me down from here!" Snape cried, his voice cracking mid-sentence.

Bellatrix Black flicked her wand, and Snape fell to the ground unceremoniously. Ginny's eyes followed Bellatrix's across the clearing to two boys she knew in an instant, Sirius Black and James Potter. Her heart leapt but soon returned to its place when she realized it had been they who tormented Snape. Ginny's sympathies were all over the map. She just looked from one to another, not knowing who to despise the most at the moment.

Bellatrix stalked angrily over to the two offending boys and faced her cousin. She whispered, but her anger carried the words over the crowd. "The fact that we're family won't stop me from killing you one day."

Ginny's breath caught in her throat, strangled by the girl's words. Ginny knew exactly where her loyalties lay, certainly not with the woman who had sworn to kill Sirius and had fulfilled that threat. Sirius's face, however, remained calm and smug. As Bellatrix roughly assisted Snape to his feet, his face adjusted into a smug smile of his own.

The color around Ginny began to swirl, muddling the picture for a moment. Soon, however, it cleared, and Ginny found herself on the grounds once more. Now it was a clear night, lit by the intensely white full moon. She stood under the moon's splendor not far from the stone steps leading to the great oak doors and the entrance hall within. Presently the doors parted and the same teenage Snape slithered outside and down the steps. The expression on his sallow face was one of malignant anticipation and joy. Snape passed Ginny at the foot of the steps, heading toward a sinewy young tree, the Whomping Willow twenty years younger. Ginny took off after him.

In the spring breeze, the willow's slender branches whipped wildly. Snape paused a moment just out of the rogue tree's reach, casting his eyes about the ground around him. Meanwhile, Ginny watched in bewildered curiosity.

Apparently Snape found was he was looking for. He dashed into the deep shadow of the castle and reappeared a second later with a long and sturdy looking tree branch, probably lost earlier in one of the season's gales. When Snape had come back to the Whomping Willow, he lay down on his stomach with the branch stretched toward the trunk of the tree. Prodding at its base, he finally struck a prominent know on the gnarly trunk. At that instant the branches of the violent tree ceased their flailing about, frozen except for what swayed in the breeze. Satisfied, Snape righted himself and threw aside the branch he had used. He rushed toward the trunk, now safe from the tree's cruel whips, and descended through a previously unnoticed hole at the roots.

Ginny was in a mind to follow when voices from behind distracted her.

"We can't do this!" Ginny spun around to see a rather flustered James running down the front steps, Sirius at his heels.

"You can't stop him, James! This is the opportunity we've been waiting for."

"Snape'll be killed! Doesn't that bother that cold heart of yours at all?" James countered, not turning to look at his best friend.

The two boys were heading straight for the Whomping Willow, still stationary in the moonlight. Realizing that something terrible was about to happen, Ginny dashed under the only slightly creaking boughs and ducked under the tree after Snape.

When the ground leveled and Ginny could stand, she found herself in a dark, dirty passage. She ran her fingers over the sides of the tunnel, groping her way along, running over crumbling earth and exposed tree roots. Ahead, Ginny could see a flickering light as of a torch or oil lamp and in it's light, a silhouette of her young professor. She followed quickly, now and then stumbling over a loose rock or root in the dark.

Ginny glanced back when she heard James and Sirius slip down the tunnel entrance. Trying to ignore them, Ginny picked up her pace to catch up with Snape. She was at his side when the tunnel ended at an open trap door. Snape was climbing through the hatch when James called out: "Snape, don't!"

He paused for a moment to look at the heavily shadowed forms of James and Sirius approaching at a run. He smirked haughtily and lifted himself through the trap door. Ginny barely hesitated before climbing up herself.

Snape and Ginny looked about themselves at the dusty floor and broken furniture of a small sitting room. Moonlight streamed through cracks in the boarded up windows. Recognition dawned on Snape's face. "We shouldn't be here," Ginny said aloud, forgetting that she was just watching an event that occurred a score years ago. Snape couldn't here her warning.

A loud crash sounded from beyond the only door out of the room. It was followed by a hoarse cry of pain. Snape stared at the door and moved silently toward it, needing to know the source of the violence. Ginny could only look on in dismay.

Suddenly Sirius and James were beside her, a smirk on Sirius's face, open-mouthed horror on James's. They were both quickly between Snape and the door however, blocking his reach for the doorknob.

"Just turn around now, Snivellus, and go back to your dormitory," Sirius warned.

"You lure me out here, and now you won't let me see what you brought me here for. So move your overly inflated heads out of my way." That familiar chill in Snape's voice didn't faze the two Gryffindors, but Snape's hand went into his robes after his wand. James and Sirius followed in suit, and Ginny began to prepare herself for an old fashioned wizard standoff.

The imminent downpour of jinxes was postponed by a growling and scratching noise directly on the other side of the door. Everyone in the room froze. And then the door was flung open to reveal a half-transformed Remus Lupin. His face was elongated, shoulders and hips refigured, fingers stretched into claws. Hair sprouted in patches over his skin. A wild look was in his eyes. Ginny took a step back, staring at the grotesque figure of her dear professor.

The next moment happened so fast that Ginny was temporarily in a daze. The werewolf sprang forward at the intruders. Sirius immediately shifted into his dog form and threw himself into Lupin's path. And James ran at Snape, grabbing hold of him, and the two of them fell down through the trap door, pulling Ginny with them into the safety of the dark tunnel. For only a second or two after she came to a hard landing, Ginny could hear a snarling fight going on within the Shrieking Shack and the heavy breathing of Snape and James beside her. Then the world went silent, and the bit of moonlight creeping through the trap door vanished.

When Ginny climbed up off the ground, she was no longer within the tunnel: She had been transported into another memory, to a dimly lit corridor in an old manor house. At the end of the corridor, the orange glow of a fire shone through an open door. And Ginny moved toward it. Raised voices came from within the room, two men arguing. As she stopped in the doorframe, Ginny took in the scene. Snape, not much older than he had been before, stood at the back of a chair, hands on the shoulders of an older woman. Her sleek black hair was streaked with silver. The damp trails of tears shone on her pale face. By the fire a man stood, one arm resting on the mantelpiece, staring into the hearth. His tall body was rigid and bristling with anger. Snape's fierce eyes were glued to the man's back. When he turned toward Snape and the woman, Ginny recognized the hook-like nose and high cheekbones.

"You will obey me, boy," the man hissed. At the cold order, the woman shook with sobs. But Snape only stood firmer, taller against his father.

"I will not bow before that murderer."

His son's defiance flared up the elder Snape, and the shouting began again. "I thought we had raised you right, Severus! The Dark Lord will be the one to bring about the vision we pure of blood have desired for centuries. We will finally be rid of those pesky Muggles and blood-traitor abominations!"

"Our vision," Snape countered, "does not justify the murder of an entire people, and I won't be part of the killing!"

Tiberius Snape threw back his head in a venomous laugh. "Murder is the killing of a fellow human being. They are not people; they are annoying insects to be squashed, exterminated." He moved toward his wife and son, drawing a slender wand from his breast pocket. "Any son of mine will share in the glory of the Dark Lord. Crucio!"

"No!" Ginny cried out from her position at the door. She could do nothing as Snape fell to the floor, flailing and jerking wildly. His howls of pain brought tears again to his mother's eyes, but she remained in her chair, clearly too afraid of the wrath of her husband to fight for her son.

Tiberius Snape was towering over his son's twitching, aching body when he lowered his wand. "I had hoped you wouldn't make me do this, Severus." Ginny saw no mercy in his eyes. "Will you take the Mark now? What say you?"

"Bastard." Snape's voice shook but not with fear. And then his body seized up again with the curse. Ginny sunk to her knees, watching Snape fight the power his father held over him. He was out of breath when the spell was lifted.

"Look, boy," he father said almost gently, "you've made your mother cry." Snape tried to rise, but the curse had left him too weak. He just looked up imploringly at his mother's tear-stained face. She turned away, and Snape let himself fall to the floor in defeat.

"I knew he would listen to reason in the end." Tiberius Snape took his wife's hand and escorted her from the room.

The scene faded, and Ginny was in a new corridor. She stood beside Snape and his father in the dark, waiting outside the single door. "Remember my warning, boy," Tiberius Snape threatened. Snape didn't respond.

The door opened of its own accord. Ginny rushed in after the two but stopped dead at the sight of a towering Lord Voldemort. She stumbled back, memories of the Chamber of Secrets surfacing. She was unaware of much speech that took place between Tiberius Snape and Voldemort. Ginny could only see Tom Riddle, grown to an even more menacing stature. She was brought back to Snape's memory when he was summoned forward by his father's Lord and Master. Earlier, he had been defiant, but now Snape was cowed before these powerful men. His forearm was bared, and Ginny squeezed her eyes closed against Snape's scream and the blackened flesh of the Dark Mark.

Then suddenly the memory was thrown askew. Ginny lost her footing, was abruptly dizzy. Her eyes sprang open when she landed once more on the hard floor of Snape's office. Above her, looking furious, Snape fumed.

"What did you see!" he demanded.

"I—I was… You… you didn't want to—" Ginny was aware of the tears in her own eyes. "Your father made you."

Snape, with a sweep of his arms, threw everything from his desk. Ginny cringed at the din. The Pensieve crashed against the wall, shattering into small pieces of stone, and silver memories seeped across the floor. After a moment of utter silence, Ginny ventured a glance up at her professor. He no longer looked angry. He had buried his face in his hands, collapsed, and he was once again the oppressed and abused young man she had seen in the basin. Ginny rose and helped him to sit on the edge of his desk. Snape did not push her away. He did not flinch when she put a tender hand on his shoulder. For a while longer they were quiet.

"Miss Weasley," he finally choked out. "If you dare breathe a word of this to anyone—" The Severus Snape she knew was back, if only slightly altered. But still, Ginny felt an odd sense of respect and sadness for him. She nodded.

"Get out."

Ginny stepped quietly toward the door and took one last look at the broken Pensieve and then at the broken man. She knew now why Dumbledore trusted Snape, knew now that she too could trust him.

"Goodnight, Professor."

The end.


End file.
